Police probe dumpster fire outside Jewish school
City police were investigating Sunday after a fire appeared to have been deliberately set outside of a Jewish school in Edmonton Saturday night.
A neighbour called Edmonton Fire Rescue Saturday just after 9 p.m. to report a recycling bin beside the Talmud Torah School at 6320 172 St. was on fire.
Fire crews were able to douse the flames within minutes and contain the damage to the recycling bin. The fire evidently burned hot enough to peel the paint from the sides of the bin, leaving burnt debris at the bottom and melted rubber clinging to the sides.
Investigators suspect the fire may have been intentionally set and the Edmonton police has taken over the investigation.
Police were called back to the school around 2 p.m. Sunday after a security guard discovered the charred remnants of a burnt garbage bag next to a door on the west side of the building. That fire scorched part of the school’s stone facade.
Investigators could not confirm whether the two fires were related, but an officer gathering evidence at the scene said police would be reviewing footage from the school’s security cameras to establish a timeline.
Gerald Sorokin, executive director with the Talmud Torah Society, said while he is unwilling to jump to any conclusions until the investigation is complete, the threat is still concerning.
“Any threat to the physical integrity of our facility is a concern to us. Of course, it is more of a concern if there is a threat to the children and employees that work in that facility,” said Sorokin.
Sorokin said most schools will be the target of low-level vandalism in some form or another, and his school has seen a few examples of vandalism with an anti-Semitic tone.
“It goes with the territory,” said Sorokin. “If you lead a Jewish institution, there will be people out there who are either inclined towards violence and decide they are going to take it out on the Jews, or they don’t like the Jews and they decide they are going to use violent means to express that feeling.”
The Talmud Torah School was first established in 1912 and became part of the Edmonton Public School District in the 1970s, maintaining a focus on bilingual Hebrew education and a Jewish studies program.
During the school year, the school serves around 130 students from kindergarten to Grade 9 and has another 70 enrolled in preschool and daycare programs on site. Preschool and day programs operate out of the facility over the summer, with about 100 children attending during the week.